Heretofore, in order to eliminate smoothness, limp touch and CHIKA (the appearance of a cloth with splashed patterns) which are drawbacks of synthetic fibers and to give fullness and softness to woven and knit fabrics, attempts have been made to make the cross section of single filament non-circular or make single filaments differ in fineness so as to give soft feel.
For example, a non-circular cross-sectional denier-mixed composite yarn having a triangular or star-shaped cross section having projections has been proposed as giving a hand without luster or smoothness, which has not been attained with conventional synthetic fibers (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6517/1980)
However, if such non-circular cross-sectional denier-mixed composite yarn is woven or knit into a fabric without incorporating any contrivance, although the fabric is free to some degree from the smoothness peculiar to synthetic fibers and adds to soft feel and fullness and softness, it still lacks dry feel.
Further, there has been proposed a non-circular cross-sectional yarn wherein the cross-sectional shape of single filaments is made very sharp in order to give dry feel to woven and knit fabrics. With this fiber, however, the sharp cross-sectional shape, through improving void factor in single filaments, results in such drawbacks as metallic luster and a hand representing paper-like roughness. Further, if such yarn is given a real or false twist of 2,000-5,000 turns per meter, because of the sharp cross section making the projecting portions less resistant to turning force, the projecting portions are deformed. If the single filaments have approximately equal fineness, they are excessively tightly packed by rotating around each other and hence the void factor is decreased, resulting in a hand representing limp touch.
That is, so far as synthetic fibers are used, it has heretofore been impossible to produce a rustic woven or knit fabric having drape or soft feel which is a property of natural silk and wool and also having tightness, stiffness and dry feel.